Pandora who?
by The Vast Empire
Summary: Raider Squad finds themselves on a mysterious ghost ship who despite tip-top condition it is, is almost 1000 years old.Blood splattered rooms and ancient languages, who is the captain of this ship and can Raider Squad survive his hospitality?


Authors' notes:

This story is currently still a work in progress being written by my squad, the Raiders.

The mission on which we were failed to a certain extent and we are pulling out, only to land in a deeper mess. Each chapter will be posted according to the person who wrote it. For instance, the opening chapter was written by our squad-leader, Sergeant Major Havock.

Enjoy!

The air was dank and stale in a way that caused your eyes to see a haze that wasn't actually there. Havock wondered if she was just tired and allowing her eyes to lose focus just enough to cause the fog, the only thing she knew was that there was no fog because there was no moisture in the ancient ship.

It had taken them twice as long to do everything since they had to compensate for the old terminals. Not to mention the fact that they were half carrying two of their own.

"We need to find the medbay."

Havock rolled her eyes and shot her head over to glare at Karash. "I'm well aware of that Karash, now unless you know the way, shut up and let me think."

=====~~=====

_The shuttle stuttered and fell out of hyperspace for the third time since leaving Nivek. "Fecking hell!" Havock thrust herself out of a maintenance hatch and chucked her hydrospanner down the hall. "What the hell is it now?"_

Aeos popped her head around the far corner. "According to Skarr, the power keeps fluctuating to the thrusters."

"I understand thats what the sensors are telling him, I'm telling you I'm looking at the damn relays and they are fine." She let out several angry grunts as she spoke. This trip had been a nightmare. The YV-100 light freighter was in worse shape than any of them thought. Havock was starting to have serious doubts that they would be making back to Tadath before the end of the standard year at this rate.

"Look, RK and Bright are checking the hyperdrive itself. Maybe its not the relays, I'm going back to the one part of the ship thats still somewhat warm." Aeos shook her head and walked back to the small crew quarters they had found that was near enough to the engines to steal some warmth from their running. The life support had been running on backups for hours now.

Havock watched her go. It was strange the way being around Aeos made her feel. She felt at home and comfortable with the girl, no matter how high her barriers remained. They needed to talk more, but Ayme was dammed if she knew what to say.

She sent a final glare at the solid green indicator board on the relays as a sudden wave of defeat washed over her. She then closed the hatch and walked towards the hydrospanner she threw.  


Havock sneered as Decembrist casually lit a cig. "Dammit Vee, that is not going to help us."

"It's going to help me, which you want to happen cause I'm quite bitchy enough already without the nicotine withdrawal." He glanced down to the right as they reached a 'T' junction in the impossibly large vessel.

"Kriffin hell, you have been taking all this down right?"

Rustam scoffed. "Havock, beautiful, navigating is what I do. Being able to read this fraking so-called language they used for their signs though would be helpful."

"Yea, right." She glanced left then right, then back left again all the while wanting to bash her head into a wall if only it would help instead of cause more problems. Havock could hear the two injured troopers being half carried half dragged by the able bodied members of her squad and she winced. This was just looking worse and worse.

=====~~======

_"What are they trying to do?" Ayme was tired. Her voice and body language made that abundantly clear. Everyone was exhausted, and tired, and smelled of stagnant swamp water._

Grahim, being the only one still in a decent mood, and sounded way to damn cheerful as he spoke up to answer the squad leader. "Theysa founda power coupling thata boom bad news, theysa fixin it."

Havock almost smiled as Grahim slowly spoke every syllable in 'power coupling', but her face was too tired to bother. "So it's a broken power coupling, great." Something about that bothered her, she wasn't sure what, but she got a tingling in the back of her neck as she thought about Brightstar and RK in the room with they hyperdrive.

Karash groaned. "Can't you go help them? Anyone? Please, I can't smell you people much longer."

Skarr snickered. "Yea Doc, like you smell of roses."

Typically Havock would have rolled her eyes, she would have laughed, she would have at least said something about keeping focus. Instead her eyes unfocused as she kept replaying what Grahim had said over and over again in her head.

The others must have continued to speak, perhaps even argue in their easily aggravated state. Or so Havock assumed when she heard Aeos' yell through the haze. "Ayme!"

"What?" The room was quiet, cold, and gross with all eyes staring at her, and she had no clue why.

Aeos opened her mouth to speak and thats when it happened. The ship shook and rocked slightly to one side, she would have cursed but the screams coming from the hyperdrive room cut off all logical thought and sent the squad leader running.  


Bright grunted and tried to escape Karash's grasp again. "For the love of insanity woman, do I need to sedate you?"

"I'm not an invalid, my eye is damaged not my legs."

Skarr hushed her from her other arm. "You do realize we could encounter hostiles right? I would prefer them not to hear us coming."

Both Karash and Bright simultaneously replied. "Shut up Skarr."

The explosion had done more than enough damage considering its small size. It had managed to take out their hyperdrive until they found new parts and two of her troopers, RK and Brightstar. Although Bright insisted that she was fine even though her right eye was useless. Deciding that going anywhere else was out of the question, they scanned the area of space they were now stranded in, and they found this oversized cruiser floating dead in space. Life support was active and there was a faint distress signal that they needed to find out about, but for now they needed to find a decent medbay to try and see what they could do for their squadmates.

"Guys, seriously." Havock looked perturbed and Decembrist stood next to her with his arms crossed and cig burning in his mouth just shaking his head slowly in disapproval.

Aeos huffed. "There is no point in splitting up we have Bright that needs a full exam and may need a new eye, and RK who is still unconscious and burned from the power coupling exploding."

"You just love pointing out the obvious dontcha Zasati."

The glare Havock got would have certainly sent most warriors peeing in their pants back to their mother, but she had become accustomed to it from Aeos.

"Can I finish?" Ayme nodded. "Yea, well based on Vasili's map so far I think the medbay would be that way." She pointed to the left. "It's logical and its more in the center of the ship, which is where medbays are located typically."

"Good enough for me. That'a'way folks."


End file.
